


Moving Through Shadow

by sue_denimme



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sue_denimme/pseuds/sue_denimme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Donna attempt to come to terms with what happened on Midnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving Through Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed -- OK, stole -- the "brain-teaser" from an episode of Star Trek: DS9.

Entering the TARDIS was like being enveloped in a warm, soft blanket and offered a hot mug of sweet creamy tea, after being stranded outside naked in a blizzard.

The Doctor mustered a lopsided smile, stroking the console briefly as he sent a half-hearted reassurance. The ship wasn't fooled, though. He had the distinct impression that if she'd had arms, she would have hugged him, just as Donna had a couple of hours ago when he'd arrived back at the leisure centre.

 _I'm fine, love, don't fuss,_ he chided mentally, with another caress before working the controls that would send her into the vortex. He stood staring upward at the time rotor, at its stately rhythmic pulse within its column of Gallifreyan crystal. Leaving Midnight and its blasted sapphire waterfall and lethal sun behind forever. If only he could do the same with the faces.

Was there a planet left in the universe where someone hadn't died for him? He sighed. At least he had managed to learn her name -- Jada Farees -- and extracted a promise from the leisure centre's operators that her husband and children would be taken care of financially for the rest of their lives. He could only hope that his warnings about the... whatever-it-was... out there had been taken to heart, and that the planet would be abandoned as soon as an evacuation could be mounted, the buildings dismantled, the tour shuttles packed up and gone. Ordinarily he would have stayed long enough to make sure of it, forcing the issue if he had to, but this time... this time he was just too bloody tired.

A hand landed on his left shoulder.

He jerked forward and spun around, unable to stop himself from cringing, even as reality reasserted itself. It wasn't Biff, of course not, that was ridiculous, the last he'd seen of Biff was when he and his wife had slunk off in the opposite direction from him the moment they'd stepped off the shuttle, Jethro throwing him a mournful look as he was dragged along after them. Probably already on a ship to Earth by now. No, it was Donna, frozen in place as she stared at him, startled, her hand still poised in midair where his shoulder had been, a stricken look on her face.

"Sorry. Sorry, I..." He cleared his throat, self-consciously straightening himself.

"No, _I'm_ sorry," she said quickly, lowering her hand. "I shouldn't have -- I mean, they grabbed you from behind like that, didn't they? Oh my God, how thick am -- "

"Donna," he interrupted. "It's all right. I'm just..." Unable to think of what he was "just", he turned away from her, ruffling his hair as he tried to compose himself once more. His nerves must be more frayed than he had thought.

A long pause, during which he could practically feel her eyes on his back. Not that he could blame her, he'd be worried too if their positions were reversed, but really, couldn't she leave him alone just this once?

"Get some sleep, will you?" she finally said, her voice soft. He heard her footsteps retreat to the interior of the ship, as if she'd heard his thoughts. Wonderful. Now he felt guilty too.

Sleep. As if. No doubt there would come a time when he could file Midnight away with all the rest of his worst memories, at least enough to allow him to rest. But that time wasn't now. It was still too fresh, too huge in his mind, blocking everything else out. The Time War. The year that never was. Jenny. River. Rose.

It had beaten him. That... _thing_ had beaten him. It had done what hordes of monsters and maniacs had failed to do for centuries. Not bad for a shadow. He ought to congratulate it. He let out a shaky laugh at the thought.

The worst bit out of everything that had happened today, though, was that he'd thought he knew humans. True, there were still some things about them he didn't get, and possibly never would. Like their reluctance to moderate their consumption of resources, their unwillingness to see what was right before them, their preference for violence over more creative methods of solving conflicts. But still, hadn't he saved them so many times he'd lost count? Hadn't he lived among them, befriended and been befriended by them, even taken a select few aboard his precious ship to share his travels? Hadn't he seen his belief in their brilliance and potential vindicated time and time again?

Where had he gone wrong? Was it the moment he had put himself forward? _"Trust me, I've got previous."_ Always before, all he'd had to do was step up, show them a little swagger, a little decisiveness, and he'd have them eating out of his hand. They'd be so relieved that _someone_ was apparently competent enough to figure out what was happening and save them, that they'd follow his every command, they'd disobey their own authority figures, they'd even sacrifice their lives if they thought it would help him. So what was so different about today?

Maybe it was simply that there was something fundamental about humans, something he had let himself forget. They were animals, and their nature as animals surfaced under stress. Animals survived by fearing what wasn't like them. Even Donna had tried to run from him the first chance she got, back when they met.

Today, he had stood out. And this time, standing out had made him a danger, as much a danger as the shadow-thing; and once they had decided that, everything about him that they could perceive, everything he had done and said, only confirmed it, _especially_ his cleverness. And what did animals do in the face of danger? Hide, flee, or attack. Well, there was nowhere to hide, and they couldn't flee.

Had the shadow-thing learned that, and used it to its advantage? Was that why it had chosen to steal _his_ voice? Not because it was the cleverest voice in the room, but because his difference made him the most vulnerable, after it had taken what it needed from Sky? Would he ever know? More importantly, _could it happen again?_

The Doctor shuddered, and was thankful no one was there to see it.

Well, standing here staring at the rotor wasn't going to help. He forced himself to turn away, to put one foot in front of the other, to leave the control room. Perhaps he'd go find a book, a movie. Do some too-long-neglected maintenance. Finish a project, or start one. Something.

~~~

"What _is_ that?

The Doctor looked up, fortunately remembering to mentally hit "pause" before his attention was entirely diverted. Donna was at his side, staring curiously at the large, transparent sphere floating in front of him, streaks of every colour in existence swirling idly over its glassy surface, mingling but never merging, like oil on water.

"It's a brain-teaser," he told her.

"A brain-teaser?"

"A puzzle."

"I _know_ what a brain-teaser _is_ ," she said with exaggerated patience. "I just never saw one like _that_ before." Seeming to take his apparent willingness to converse as an invitation, she dropped down across from him. "How's it work?"

"You use your thoughts to turn all the colours into one colour. Sort of a mental exercise. Like gymnastics for the brain."

Of course, he knew what her response to that would be.

"Can I try?"

"Be my guest." He "told" the sphere to reset to a second player.

Donna sat up straighter, staring hard at the sphere, her brows knit. "Um... what do I do?" she asked, not moving her eyes.

"Just concentrate, and imagine the colours moving wherever you direct them. When you've got them all lined up in the correct order, they'll all turn blue." He watched with a glimmer of amusement as her gaze intensified and she sat silent for several moments. The colours stilled, then began to move, sluggishly at first, then speeding up in some areas and slowing in others, until finally she stirred, a scowl of frustration on her face as the idle swirling resumed.

"The moment I get one colour in place, the rest of them go doolally," she complained.

"That's not surprising." At her annoyed look, he hastened to explain. "I mean, it does that to me, too. I've only solved it... ooh, a dozen times in five hundred years? Well... a few times. Well... once or twice." As a matter of fact, now that he thought about it, since acquiring it from a grateful planetary prime minister sometime during his third incarnation, he'd solved it exactly twice. Once when he was Three, and once when he was Seven. Four had got bored with it, Five had lost it, Six had found it again but was too impatient, Eight had forgotten all about it, and Nine had nearly broken it. As for the current body, Ten... well, all of them would probably be laughing right now if they could see him.

Donna sighed, leaning back on her hands, and for a long moment they both sat silent, gazing at the ball but neither one of them taking the puzzle back under control, until finally it disappeared with a quiet bleep.

"It shuts off when you leave it alone long enough," he told her, and indicated the small device sitting before his crossed legs. "Shall I switch it back on and you can try again?" He held his thumb over the appropriate button, raising his eyebrows at her expectantly.

"Nah, I'd rather just sit here... unless you'd rather be alone?"

He shook his head. This incarnation didn't do alone. Well, not for long anyway. "No, you can stay if you want. Though, I thought you were going to bed."

"I thought _you_ were," she retorted.

"Well, that's both of us awake, then."

Another long silence. He closed his eyes, hearing and feeling the ever-present background hum, the song of the TARDIS, vibrating in his bones, its pitch rising slightly, as if the ship itself were waiting.

"I'm sorry," Donna said at last, almost inaudibly.

The Doctor opened his eyes to see her now clasping her drawn-up knees, rocking slightly, resting her head on one arm and looking off toward some point that seemingly only she could see.

"What for?" he asked.

"For not being there, when you needed me. I should have been there." One hand freed itself, tightening into a fist. "I should have known better than to think you'd be able to go a whole day on a planet without getting into trouble. I'm your mate. I'm supposed to have your back. But instead, while you were almost getting murdered, I was getting a massage. If it weren't for that hostess, I'd never have seen you again."

"The TARDIS would have taken you home," he found himself saying. "There's an emergency programme -- "

"Sod the emergency programme!" She lifted her head to glare at him, a glint of tears in her eyes. "That's not the point, you dumbo. When I think I almost lost you because I wanted to go _sunbathing_... and then I think about how differently things could have turned out if I'd gone with you -- and four people might still be alive -- "

"Donna." Finally galvanized to action, he crossed the small distance between them to gather her into his arms. "You don't know that. You don't know that they wouldn't have thrown you out right after me, just for defending me. In fact, they certainly would have. Those people were scared out of their wits, Donna. For all I know, if you'd been there, it might have gone for you instead, and you might be a pile of dust on the surface of Midnight right now. And I'd be another pile of dust right beside you, because they'd have had to go through me first."

She sniffled and buried her head in his chest. "Don't say that."

"It's true." He held her tightly. "You can't control everything, Donna. Not even the last of the Time Lords can control everything. Sometimes things just happen, and you can't stop them or change them, and you have to deal with them as best you can and move on."

" _Ha!_ "

The exclamation startled him, as did the punch. He loosed her to reflexively grab his arm where she'd hit it, gaping bemused into her triumphant grin as she sat up.

" _That's_ the point. Congratulations, Time Boy, you finally got it."

All the Doctor could do was stare at her with his mouth open, utterly speechless. And with this incarnation, that was saying something.

"So now that you've said it yourself, maybe you can take your own advice, yeah? Play with your toys, take a nap, do whatever you need to do, then get back to it. And the next time something comes at you -- well, you figured it out once, you can do it again."

At last he found his voice. "You mean... all that... you were acting?" He didn't know whether to laugh or choke.

"Oh no, I meant every word." Donna wiped at one eye with her hand. "I still wish I'd been there. But I'm not going to let it stop me, and I'm not going to let it stop you either. So. You're going to be all right, yeah? And if you say 'I'm always all right', I'm going to force-feed you pears."

"Well, with a threat like that, I can hardly say no, can I?" he grumbled, but he couldn't help smiling.

"And are you going to get up and save some planets tomorrow, or am I going to have to hurt you?"

For answer, he hugged her again, his chin resting on the top of her head, thinking not for the first time how grateful he was for huon particles.

 

~end


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